Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Educational media'

Traditional education system on campus has been using as a legacy over decades to support educational learning. The major change over time has been made by the use of technology supporting students in the academic community. As the majority of students in higher education today belong to the digital-age-student generation, they frequently use online technology to interact with instructors, other learners, and to access online materials. In this study, the result is primarily presented from campus students’ perceptions, to gain a deeper understanding of how social media is being used to support educational and collaborative/cooperative learning. Although, almost all the respondents are frequent social media users, only a quarter of them use such media regularly for academic purposes. Through use of social media in academia, students have encountered with benefits─ as convenience, possibility of interaction anywhere/anytime, time-saving, low price and many others─ in addition to facing to limitations─ such as less effective or spontaneous contact, connection problems, lack of platform compatibility, less creative and innovative thinking, and other issues─ which have been discussed in this study.

This thesis adopted a qualitative research and the characterization of knowledge that is used is exploratory research method with the use of interview as a tool for empirical data collection. Twenty interviews have been conducted with Uppsala University higher education students within random subject disciplines. Among many different social media, the most frequent ones used by majority of students are e-mail, a common asynchronous media to interact with instructors and other learners; and Instant Messaging (IM), a synchronous communication way to interact with co-workers, classmates, or group-mates. Furthermore, learners use social media to coordinate their collaborative/cooperative work, share documents and ask questions. Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube and other popular social media are also sometimes used for educational purposes.

The findings indicate that social media seems particularly beneficial for supporting educational learning; though there are some negative aspect and limitations. Learners look at using the technology and social media as a complement to support their studies and collaboration/cooperation. However, not many of them consider using such media as a substitute for face-to-face interactions and the traditional campus education. By drawing on this thesis and the previous studies, proposition on how use of social media supports educational learning in the future has been emerged.

Technological advancements in society demand that students learn in contexts that take advantage of the vast availability of information, tools, and connectivity. Although research has focused on the development of Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) to inform and support teachers and principals within these evolving environments (Barkley, 2012; Carpenter & Krutka, 2014; Sinanis, 2015; Visser, Evering & Barrett, 2004), there is a lack of formal learning opportunities for leadership to support this transformation. Further, limited empirical research exists to substantiate claims that school district leaders who use social media for PLN purposes learn about, share, and enact leadership to support organizational transformation.

To help fill this gap in the knowledge base, this study employed a four-stage mixed-method research study to investigate United States public school superintendents use of Twitter for learning, leading, and leveraging improvement. Stage one established the population of United States superintendents with Twitter accounts. Stage two drew a random sample from the population to analyze representative Twitter patterns. Stage three focused on coding randomly sampled tweets of 100 superintendents for content aligned to the conceptual framework of learning, leading and leveraging through Twitter. Coding results framed stage four, which presented case studies of a purposeful sample of superintendents to identify motivations, purposes and influence on leadership enactment through Twitter use.

The study results showed that approximately 17% of U.S. superintendents have Twitter accounts. The Twitter-using superintendents reflect the gender breakdown of American superintendents, but Midwestern superintendents are overrepresented. Superintendents use Twitter predominantly for professional reasons with tweet content demonstrating a higher inclination toward leveraging influence than learning or leading. Superintendents purposefully use Twitter in ways they believe enhances their leadership by providing transparency to their work and district accomplishments. Through connections with others, superintendents use Twitter to inspire and communicate a vision for purposeful change; advocate for funding and policy; and model effective technology use through PLNs to enhance learning and collegial relationships. Additionally, Twitter enhanced off-line interactions and provided connection with students, offering professional wisdom about their experiences within school systems. The study provides insights of how social media contributes to digital leadership within school districts.

Social media has permeated nearly every facet of our modern society. The influence on our culture has been beneficial but challenging. The impact of social media upon the school environment has been tremendous, yet few school districts have created policies describing its acceptable use by employees. Teachers are left feeling uncertain as to where the boundaries exist for their personal and professional use of social media and what can happen when they cross that undefined line. This dissertation examines the court cases that have influenced employment decisions for school employees and defined employees’ First Amendment right to free speech as it relates to the use of social media. The cases related to students’ free speech limitations that have influenced teachers’ cases will be reviewed, as well as current policies as they exist at the national, state, and local levels. The primary purpose of this research is to look for trends among the cases, create guidelines for administrators to use to determine if their employees have engaged in protected speech, and provide a framework for districts to use when creating their own social media policies.

Although there is a large investment made in technology in our public and private schools each year, there has been comparatively little effort made into understanding the impact of that technology on our students. This study examines the relationship between student boredom, media multitasking, and distraction in an effort to understand the impact of media multitasking on our students. To examine this, a mixed methods design was utilized, consisting of a memory recall experiment, student interviews, and a survey instrument. This study found that laptops are preferred over iPads for both focus and academic reasons, and it discovered classroom environments and teaching methodologies that caused distraction to occur as well as strategies employed by students to attempt to overcome distraction. Ultimately, this study did not find an impact on academic performance as assessed by a memory recall experiment. As a result, this study contributes significant knowledge into technology distraction at the high school level as well as modifications that can help improve student focus.

The purpose of this study was to an investigate school administrator perceptions of their authority to intervene in disciplinary issues that arise from students’ use of social media. The overarching question for this proposal was: How do educational leaders view their role in protecting students and the learning environment from student misconduct that occurs off campus?

The exponential use of personal technology allows students to continuously interact with each other, even off school campus. Some of this interaction represents a continually unwanted harassment between students. In Louisiana, there have been at least three documented cases of students committing suicide following negative exchanges online with their peers. Such negative communications between students may also disturb the learning environment of the school. School districts may also vary in their approach to addressing issues originating either off campus or on social media.

This research project employs youth development and critical race theory to understand the participation gap in social media. It does this by prioritizing youth voice as the focal point of knowledge creation. It explores why this is such vital topic for academic discussion within education and youth development. It delves into previous work on the topic through a literature review. This qualitative study is based on four focus groups (6 -8 youth each) and three in-depth follow up interviews across four different high schools in the Sacramento area. An inductive grounded theory approach was used to analyze the focus groups and interviews. This paper will explain that process as well as state findings and potential implications for youth, parents, and teachers. This research will provide an examination of the online trends of youth activity and help inform strategies for healthy social media use.

This study was designed to determine if a mental health professional’s web presence with use of social media icons (or badges) would impact upon the perceived competence of that therapist. The icons were those of the three major social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus. The 162 participants consisted of undergraduate students enrolled at two major universities located in the western United States. The participants were asked to think of themselves as help-seekers for purposes of this study. Three mock web pages were designed, one with no social media icons presented, one with social media icons which laid claim to a low number of Likes, Followers, and Pluses (terms of art used by Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus respectively), and one with social media icons which laid claim to an extraordinarily high number of Likes, Followers, and Pluses. Participants were evenly split between males and females, and then placed at random into groups of 27 that then viewed one of the three mock web pages. Participants were asked to rate the fictional therapist as to perceived overall competence, as well as to indicate their willingness to make initial contact with that therapist. The measurement instrument used was the Counselor Rating Form – Short Version (CRF-S). Results were not statistically significant. Findings and potential for future research are discussed.